Buffalo Gal

by Mary Connealy

  “It’s not that bad.” Wolf lifted his black hat off his head and settled it back in place. “I’ve had every extra man here scouting. Over a hundred of them returned to the Buffalo Commons on their own.”

  Wyatt jerked his head up and said sharply, “I sent Anna and the boys over there. Are they all right?”

  “I’ve been in contact with them. Anna, Cody, and Colt, as well as Sally and Jeanie, are at the Commons, all sleeping like babies. Anna got the boys to bed and told me she was heading there herself.”

  “So only 121 buffalo loose,” Wyatt sneered.

  “Look”—Buffy turned on him—“I’ve about had it with—”

  “I said we found over a hundred.” Wolf talked over her, which was a good idea.

  She clamped her mouth shut.

  Wolf went on. “We got an exact count on the ones we loaded in the semis, so we’re sure about them. Seth’s taken the best head count back at the Commons, and he thinks there’re more like 150. They’re milling around, and we aren’t firm on the number yet as a few more have wandered back in since they first found them. We’ve driven the ones there well away from the hole in the fence, but we’ve left the fence open, hoping more will come home.”

  “So only, say, seventy-five buff rampaging through my ranch. Great!” Wyatt was still holding his gun.

  “Hey!” Buffy snatched the rifle out of his hand and stormed over to her rig and put it on the seat. “I’m sick of you stalking around with that dumb thing. You’d think you needed it to prove your manhood.”

  “Buffy, you’re tired,” Wolf said. “Don’t start in on Wyatt.”

  Buffy waved her hand at Wolf. “I can’t stand here and listen to him whine for another second!”

  “Whine?” Wyatt wheeled on her.

  She tilted her head up, way up, so she could meet his eyes. “If I have to listen to one more smart remark from you, I won’t be responsible for my actions.”

  Wyatt sneered. “Not responsible. I’d say that about sums it up.”

  She realized she could see him. The sun was coming up. Wyatt was exhausted. She was exhausted. She knew he didn’t deserve this, but her control was hanging by a thread. She tried to get away from him. “I’ve got buffalo to find.” Buffy spun around on her heel.

  Wyatt grabbed her arm, and she spun right back. He hauled her hard against his chest. “I’ve been working all night trying to clean up the mess you made.” He shook her arm.

  She jerked against his grip, and when he didn’t let go, it felt like the top of her head caught fire. “You get your hands off me, or I’ll—”

  Wolf shoved in between them. “I didn’t finish. There aren’t seventy-five buffalo running loose, because quite a few calves got scattered. I’ve got men combing the area bringing them in. We’ve found twenty-three so far, and we’ve just started hunting.”

  “Th–there’s one dead at Wyatt’s place.” Buffy forgot about Wyatt’s grip for a second and felt tears sting her eyes. She had about fifty good reasons to cry, all of them still on the loose. Oh, who was she kidding? She had about 1,462 reasons. She looked at Wyatt’s furious, exhausted face. 1,463.

  “What now?” Wyatt yanked the brim of his hat low over his eyes. “Do I have to stand here while the poor little lady cries her eyes out? That’s all I need!”

  “It’s getting light.” Wolf pushed his hands out flat against their chests, and Wyatt let go of her arm.

  Buffy had to step away from Wyatt or start fighting with Wolf.

  “We don’t have time for this. Let’s get to work rounding up the rest of those buff.” Wolf said to Wyatt, “I’ve got a half dozen tranquilizer guns in the back of my truck. I’ll hand them out. We’ll post guards around your cattle and every other herd around. We’ll stay connected by the CBs.”

  “How many men do you think you have?” Wyatt asked cynically.

  Buffy wondered herself. Wolf sure was promising a lot of manpower.

  “I’ve got all I need. Mr. Leonard’s Learjet is expected in with twenty men on board. They’re all off-duty forest rangers he contacted in and around Yellowstone, so they’re top men. They’re used to working with buffalo. He’s rounding up another twenty out of Wyoming. And he’s coming out personally to make sure this whole thing turns out right. Having the Buffalo Commons succeed is important to him, and this is a major screw-up. He’s going to take whatever steps are necessary to make sure it never happens again. We’ll get them, Wyatt. By the time we finish counting the dead, we might find out we’ve got all of them already.”

  “Yeah, I’ll bet,” Wyatt said bitterly.

  Buffy reached past Wolf to throttle Wyatt.

  Wolf caught her hand. He said to Wyatt, “Grab a tranquilizer gun.”

  “For her?” Wyatt asked icily.

  Wolf ignored him. “There aren’t that many buff left to round up. Let’s quit talking and start looking. You take Buffy’s truck, and we’ll head back to the Commons.”

  Wolf boosted Buffy into his truck before she knew what happened. She wanted to go with Wyatt. She had a few more things she wanted to say to him.

  Wyatt tore out of the yard, leaving a trail of dust a mile high.

  ❧

  “Leonard looks like he’s on top of the world,” Buffy observed sourly as Leonard came out of the house to meet them. She hadn’t been thinking clearly enough to send a truck out to the landing strip, but Wolf must have remembered.

  “He loves it out here.” Wolf pulled his truck to a stop and tugged a handkerchief out of his pocket, wiping dirt and sweat off his forehead. “The other times he’s visited, he’s always been excited like this. Of course, I get the idea he’s running on a pretty high voltage all the time. And he knows about the stampede; I had one of the men stay on the phone in contact with his jet.”

  “He’s going to start writing checks, I suppose. I don’t like to think of what Wyatt might have to say about that.” She almost hoped Mr. Leonard would just leave it to her to handle. Wyatt might insult Mr. Leonard so badly that she’d end up fired. She thought glumly that she deserved whatever happened.

  Leonard came striding toward the truck as Buffy and Wolf climbed out. He extended his hand to Wolf and didn’t so much as look sideways at her. Buffy felt energy coming off Mr. Leonard in waves. High voltage didn’t do him justice.

  She had never met him before now. She’d been hired for this job by his Buffalo Commons Department, or whatever Leonard called it. She’d received a congratulatory phone call from him once she’d accepted the job, but that was all. She’d heard he visited occasionally, not overnight and never with any warning.

  “Wolf, it looks like you’re getting things under control.”

  Wolf took a quick glance at Buffy, and she knew he expected her support in anything he said. “The buff are almost all rounded up, but there’s been a lot of damage. They ran through our nearest neighbor’s ranch yard. They destroyed two vehicles. A barn burned down. He’s got some dead livestock, and his house is about half ruined. It’s a mess, and it might be worse than that. His herd, if the buffalo get out with them—”

  Mr. Leonard held up his hand, and Wolf fell silent. Buffy could tell Wolf didn’t like it.

  “I’ve got someone over there right now assessing the damage and making plans to set things right.” Leonard talked like a machine gun, spraying his opinion at the world. “I’ve already talked with Shaw’s niece. She’s a very angry young lady. Apparently her car was in the line of the stampede. And I’m aware of the repercussions of my buffalo getting at his cattle. I hear you sent men to ride herd on all the cattle in the area to watch for buffalo trying to join the group. Good thinking, Wolf.”

  Buffy didn’t bother to mention that she and Wolf had decided that together.

  “I’ve got more men coming in. I’ve got aerial surveillance already underway. I’ve hired every local crop duster I could find, and they’re being organized to fly a pattern over the whole area looking for buffalo. I’ve got a team of security experts coming in t
o make changes on the fence. I also want to put a dozen additional riders on the perimeter permanently. That’s a dozen all the time, three shifts a day. I’d like to hire locals if you can find them. It pumps money into the local economy. In the meantime, I’m bringing in riders from outside. I’m committing an additional million dollars a year in salaries. Plus the expense for the fence. I want that fence to stand up to lightning or a tornado.

  “That all sounds good, Mr. Leonard”—Buffy decided it was time to at least make herself heard—“but there’s more than just money at stake. Mr. Shaw’s children could have been killed. He’s determined to get these buffalo out of here. If you’d talk to him, explain your commitment to endangered species, I think it would—”

  “I’ve got business demanding my attention.” Leonard looked at her for the first time, but he never quite made eye contact. He wrinkled his nose a little as if she smelled. He directed his comment to Wolf. “Flying out here from New York this morning wasn’t part of my schedule. You’ll have to handle community relations. When my assessors are done, they’ll write Mr. Shaw a check. I’m going to add a quarter of a million dollars for emotional distress. That ought to take care of it. If he wants more than that, I’ll hire an arbitrator to hammer out the details.”

  Buffy said, “It’s not the money, Mr. Leonard. Wyatt’s children were—”

  When he waved his hand this time, Buffy almost jumped him.

  Wolf settled his hand on her shoulder.

  Still talking to Wolf, Leonard said, “I’ve got an associate who will be here tomorrow to begin restitution proceedings. Please relay any further damages to him.” Leonard turned from them and began striding toward the Jeep that would drive him back to his flashy little jet.

  He was walking so fast Buffy had to run to catch up with him. She wanted to grab his arm, but she was a little too intimidated to do it, which made her mad. “You can’t just issue orders and walk away from this.”

  A uniformed pilot jumped to attention and came around to hold open the door to the Jeep.

  Mr. Leonard turned for the first time and really looked. “You’re Miss Lange, aren’t you? You’re supposedly in charge here?”

  “That’s right.”

  “I wouldn’t have agreed to hire someone so young to fill in until the director I want was available if not for that ‘Doctor’ in front of your name and such impeccable references. I was led to believe you were a woman who could handle buffalo.”

  “I can handle them.”

  Mr. Leonard’s lips curled in what could only be distaste.

  She was filthy—she’d spent the night in a cloud of buffalo-churned dust—and she reeked. She’d earned this stink through brutal hours of hard work. Her hair was a rat’s nest, and she hadn’t even unpacked her makeup yet, if she had any Jeanie hadn’t swiped. She had no wish to pass some sleazy test of beauty administered by Mr. Leonard, but still his disgust stung.

  “I’ll make any unhappy people happy, and you will do your job and keep your mouth shut. Refer any reporters to my public relations division. They’re preparing to handle everything. If any quotes in the press come from you, you’ll lose this job, and the people who work with buffalo are few and far between, Miss Lange. I’m a major supporter of most of the work that is being done with them in both the public and private sector. The wrong word from me could make you a pariah.”

  The pilot, deaf by all appearances, waited until Mr. Leonard finished threatening her and got in. The pilot slammed the door, climbed behind the wheel, and drove off.

  “Santa Claus in a Learjet,” Wolf said sarcastically, coming up beside her while they watched the Jeep disappear over the rise to the runway. “Ho, ho, ho.”

  “Did you hear what he said?” Buffy was still gasping from the shock.

  “Every word. That’s the way he operates. He didn’t get to where he is by being a soft touch.”

  “No, he got there by being a ruthless dictator.”

  Wolf tipped his head in agreement. “All he lacks is a country of his own and some weapons of mass destruction.”

  “Right now, Wyatt might think the buffalo counted as weapons.” Buffy turned her thoughts from what could easily become the wreckage of her career. “I was sure Mr. Leonard would at least apologize to Wyatt in person. Although I have to admit, I was worried Wyatt might deck him. Now that I’ve met the man, I’m even more sure that’s how it would have ended up.”

  “Oh, I don’t know. He was pretty decent to me.” Wolf’s voice was droll, and the look he gave her told her he was waiting for her to explode.

  She decided not to keep him waiting. “Who does that man think he is?” Buffy heard the jet fire up and watched to see if the noise made her herd stampede again. They ignored the noise. Then the plane disappeared into the sky. “I heard so much about community relations. And I thought this was more than a rich man’s hobby. He’s supposed to be a naturalist. How can he not stay and see if we get the buffalo rounded up? What about the environmental impact of this stampede? We could have damaged the ecosystem, destroyed wetlands, trampled nesting areas along the Cold Creek. . . . What can Leonard be thinking?”

  “A more interesting question,” Wolf said thoughtfully, “is why did he bother to come if he was only going to make a token appearance?”

  “PR,” Buffy said coldly. “If this leaks, the press will know he came. Mr. Sincerely Sorry inspecting the damage.”

  “Who in the press are we supposed to tell?”

  Buffy said grimly, “Who indeed.”

  Wolf gave her a worried glance. “Buffy, you wouldn’t.”

  “Actually no, I wouldn’t. All we need is a bunch of reporters hanging around here.”

  “But you’re tempted,” Wolf said mildly.

  “I’m tempted to do a lot of things I won’t do. For example, I was tempted to knock Leonard on his backside for the way he talked to me. I didn’t.”

  “Good girl. I was tempted to knock him down for the way he treated you.”

  Buffy jerked her gloves off her hands and tucked them behind her belt buckle. “Noticed that, did you?”

  “Hard not to.” Wolf rested his hand on her shoulder.

  With Wolf’s rugged support, Buffy allowed herself to feel the sting of Leonard’s disrespect. It helped that Wolf had seen it and cared. “Let’s go see how the head count is going.”

  Seven

  Wyatt sent the truck racing backward in time.

  It was as if history were erasing itself as he barreled over the rough pastureland toward the hulking buffalo in the middle of his cattle. He was driving Buffy’s own truck, near as he could tell. It had Oklahoma plates and her name on the registration. And Wyatt hadn’t seen Wolf consult Buffy, so Wolf had probably not been in the right to lend it out, but Wyatt kept it anyway.

  He raced his truck toward the buffalo and wished he had Gumby. He hadn’t even been back to his place. He didn’t know if Gumby or any of the rest of his horses were alive or dead. He didn’t have time to go check, and besides, he couldn’t stand to. Wolf had promised to send someone by and to take care of any injured animals. Wyatt had to see to his cattle.

  He’d talked to Anna and the boys on the CB radio. Anna was still furious, but they were safe. He stuck his head out of Buffy’s window and yelled, “Git out! Hyah!” He aimed the rig straight for the buff, and the big animal only raised its shaggy head and stared. Wyatt quit acting like a madman and stopped the truck so the buff was out the driver’s side window about twenty feet away. He lifted the tranquilizer gun off the rack in the back window, took careful aim, and fired. The buffalo barely flinched, and that was more from the noise than the bright red dart stabbing into his flank.

  While Wyatt waited for the sedative to take effect, he radioed Wolf. “It’s a bull, and it’s had plenty of time to breed with my cows.”

  “We’ll be over with a stock trailer in fifteen minutes. We’ll have him quarantined and checked for brucellosis and any other contagious diseases that could affect your cat
tle. If he’s healthy, the worst that’ll happen is a few of your cows’ll have a calf that’s half buff. This is the first one you’ve seen?”

  “Yep. How’s the head count?” Wyatt watched the buffalo waver and go down on one front knee and then the other.

  “We’ve got twenty-five still missing. Now with the one you’ve got, it’s twenty-four. We’re hoping a few more will wander back to the Commons.”

  “Twenty-four buffalo running loose? We could be finding them for a long time.”

  “No, we’re not letting up until we’ve got them all.”

  “Check along the creek. Grass is good. Lots of water. And there’s tree cover, so they might be overlooked.”

  “I’ve already sent men on horseback along the river.”

  Wyatt sighed as he saw the buffalo’s back end collapse. He lay with his head up, panting. “He’s down. Are men on the way?”

  “I’m halfway there already, Wyatt,” Seth broke in on the CB. “Is there any damage to the school?”

  “None I can see. What if this had happened a month later and the kids had been in school?”

  Wolf broke in. “Don’t go borrowing trouble.”

  “Yeah, I remember. I’m a whiner,” Wyatt said acidly.

  “I’m signing off.” Wolf was gone with a click.

  “I’m going to keep hunting, Seth. I’ve got five more pastures to check. You got enough men with you to load him?”

  “We’ve come prepared. We appreciate the help.”

  “I’m not doing it to help you.” Wyatt shut the CB off with a sharp snap. Seth didn’t deserve to be barked at, but Wyatt didn’t call him back. Instead, he drove toward his next pasture. He ran nearly forty thousand head of cattle on sixty thousand acres. He’d checked about half of them so far.

  He found men stationed at the next two places. The men reported no sight of any buffalo. Midafternoon he found a year-old buff, injured but alive, hobbling alone miles from anywhere. After some concern with the dosage, Wyatt decided not to dart it. He called Wolf and stood guard on the calf until Seth showed up.

  “Ten more have come home, and we found a small herd of them, eight in all, along the creek.” Seth climbed out of his truck, his blond hair matted with dirt and sweat, exhaustion cutting lines in his face. “We should have them back on the Commons by nightfall. With this calf, we’re down to four missing buff.”